SAVAK

The Organization of Intelligence and National Security (SAVAK) was the secret police and intelligence service of Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, existing from 1957 to 1979. The SAVAK was created with assistance from the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Mossad, and it was known to torture and execute opponents of the regime. The party had between 4,000 and 6,000 staff members, but it secretly employed up to 60,000 people, including informants and spies. Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar had SAVAK dissolved at the start of the Iranian Revolution, and almost all SAVAK members were hunted down and killed by the revolutionaries, including Bakhtiar, who was assassinated in France by the IRGC in 1991.